Starring: Kevin Costner, Amber Heard, Hailee Steinfeld, Connie Nielsen
Directed By: Mc G

I had so many problems watching 3 Days To Kill. At first, I thought the film felt like it was scripted by a classroom of 12 year olds, who each got to add something to the plot of the film. It’s a shame that the film wasn’t taken more seriously, because there isn’t a bad core plot, and if it wasn’t messed with, it might have been a decent movie. Instead of just making a movie about a dying ex-CIA operative being given a second chance at life, we’re bogged down with Amber Heard’s ridiculous CIA agent, family time, squatters, befriending your hostage, albinos (because, why the fuck not?) and other silly shit.

Then all my concerns were answered when I went to IMDB. Directed by McG. Not that McG is the worst director in the world, but he is a dangerously inconsistent director. Don’t believe me? Did you actually enjoy This Means War or the Charlie’s Angels sequel? How about the fact that he most recently directed the awful and nonsensical pilot for The Mysteries Of Laura? Depending on who you ask, the best thing he’s EVER done is either the first Charlie’s Angels or We Are Marshall.

Kevin Costner plays a dying assassin offered a potential second chance at life with an experimental new drug, offered to him by Amber Heard, who looks so ill equipped to be working at the CIA, and is still learning how to do this whole “acting” thing. See… Costner wants to spend more time with his daughter (who might be bipolar considering her hot and cold reactions to her father), and his ex-wife (who may or may not be sleeping with someone else, but we won’t really explore that subplot). Costner also has a home that he hasn’t been to in so long that there are generations of squatters living in his place. They’re super friendly too, and surprisingly understanding of his situation.

One of the main guys in the film is an albino, and I feel like this was pitched at a meeting and the response was “because, why the fuck not?” so they just went with it. Costner’s assassin also oddly befriends one of his hostages, even after torturing him, and gets a second one to give his daughter a recipe for spaghetti sauce. Is this film a comedy? What the hell is going on? The people at Cinema Sins need to jump on this film immediately.

The sad thing is that the action sequences are actually well done, but they are bogged down by half-assed attempts at comedy. The movie is never funny, and Hailee Steinfeld’s character is so poorly written that you never care if father and daughter actually reconcile. This is honestly one of the worst screenplays I’ve ever seen carried out into a movie. Sometimes, a film is let down by acting or directing, but the screenplay here is so awful that I don’t think even Chris Nolan or Martin Scorsese could have saved it without just trashing the whole script.

Somehow, probably largely because of a handful of action sequences, and the fact that even a miscast Costner still seems to be marginally likeable, I found enough reasons to not fail this movie. The screenplay as a stand alone entity would get an F, but there are a few tiny moments in 3 Days To Kill that aren’t just complete trash. Only a few. Not enough for me to say this is a “watchable” film. Kevin Costner may have 3 Days To Kill you, but all he needed was two hours to make you want to do it yourself.

FINAL GRADE: D+